Saint-Cloud 1926

This small photograph, Saint-Cloud, was made by Eugène Atget. I am always fascinated by the way an artist chooses a frame. Here, the artist is using the tree to hold everything in, like a kind of embrace, and the branches at the top seem to weigh down and flatten the view. There’s such a contrast between the dark mass of the tree and the light behind it. It makes me wonder what Atget was thinking when he was making this; did he see himself in that tree? Was he looking to contain something? I think of Agnes Martin, and the way she also managed to see so much through such a reductive lens. Like her, Atget coaxes us to see the emotional power in tone, form, and texture. I find myself reflecting on the quiet magic that connects artists. They find each other across time.